Current electronic devices continue to become more prevalent in day-to-day activities. For example, smart phones and tablet computers continue to grow in popularity and provide everyday personal and business functions to their users. These electronic devices typically include input components, such as buttons or screen displays, that may be utilized by a user to interact (e.g., input/output) with the electronic devices. These input components may be formed on and/or integral with the housing of the electronic device.
To maintain and/or to ensure functionality of the electronic device, input components and the housing of electronic devices may be formed from materials that may withstand conventional wear-and-tear on the electronic device. As an example, ceramic materials may be used to form the input components and/or the housing. Specific examples of the ceramic material include alumina (Al2O3) (e.g., corundum), sapphire and zirconia. Because of the unique and beneficial chemical or physical characteristics (e.g., hardness, strength), ceramic materials have become a viable material to be used in current electronic devices.
To ensure all ceramic materials used to form components of the electronic device meet quality control standards and/or will function substantially similarly between each individual device, the ceramic materials may undergo conventional material testing processes. Such material testing processes may include a material bending test. During the bending test, a piece of ceramic material is bent or flexed to detect material faults and/or flaws that may be formed in the material. However, because the bending test applies a global stress to the ceramic material when flexing the material, the results of the test may be less than accurate. For example, the ceramic material may prematurely break in a portion of the material that includes no faults or material flaws, but includes reduced strength because of features (e.g., apertures, recess) formed therein. Additionally, the ceramic material may not break in a portion of the material that includes detrimental material fault or flaw because of the way in which the global stress is formed on the ceramic material and/or the location of the material flaw in respect to the bend in the ceramic material. Further, the bending test applies a global stress to the entire ceramic material and does not differentiate between portions of the ceramic material that may be more or less susceptible to damage when implemented within the electronic device.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a material testing process that can selectively and accurately proof test a ceramic material.